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It's Midnight. What are you reading?

Katrina Jack, the author of Land of Midnight Days, was gracious enough to treat us with another excerpt from her novel. The first in a trilogy, Land of Midnight Days is now available on Amazon.com and Amazon.UK. This is urban fantasy at it's best!

At two a.m. The Den closed. Along with the last few stragglers, Jeremiah started to make his way home.

Although bone tired, his mind churned with thoughts of the stranger and who he might be. If he was his brother then maybe that’s why he’d seemed familiar. What-ifs danced around each other, before reality reasserted itself. Best try and forget about the mystery man, at least until tomorrow.

Jeremiah’s body felt heavy, not just from weariness, but also from the coins that weighed down his backpack. The takings had been good, just a pity they had to be handed over. He couldn’t even skim any of it off; Ezra had counted every last coin before he left. The only reason the old money-grubber hadn’t taken the cash straight away, was because yet another fight had broken out at the club. As he’d gone to crack a few heads, Ezra ordered Jeremiah to take the money back to the house.

Up ahead a large group of people stood on the street corner. Several voices were raised, creating a jangle of argument, jeers and threats. Jeremiah slid into a nearby alley.

Two figures, one large, the other smaller, seemed to be the focus of the disturbance. They stood in a pool of light from a streetlamp, almost toe to toe. Jeremiah clenched his suddenly sweaty hands. He’d heard about these standoffs, but never witnessed one before.

Face smeared with crudely applied dye, the shorter figure was a Wannabe. The larger wore the Bridge-Street-Ganger colours. Heavy-set face impassive, he stared down at the diminutive youth, arms folded. A crest of red hair stood up on the crown of his head. Light glinted off the metal piercings that studded his nose, mouth and eyebrows. More Gangers stood to the rear of him, unnaturally still. Their air of watchfulness strung the air with tension. Jeremiah sensed it would only take one wrong word from the group of Wannabes to set the Street-Warriors off. He could almost taste their eagerness to bloody their hands, to crack the heads and bones of the pathetic Dragash, their name for any non-Ganger species.

The Wannabe, backed by his own crew, stuck out his thin chest. ‘We done everythin’ you asked us,’ he shouted. His voice cracked, indicating his extreme youth. ‘You gotta let us into your gang, we’ve earned it,’

The lead Ganger raised a studded eyebrow. ‘Whyfores we take on youse? Youse be puny and good for nothings.’

Sweat trickled down Jeremiah’s back, as he watched the Wannabe scowl. Surely he couldn’t be so stupid as to think the Gangers would allow him and his cohorts into their fraternity? The Gangers used the Wannabes as go betweens or agents; nothing more. Then his worse fear turned to reality, when the youth whipped a knife from his belt. The moron obviously thought a display of bravado would impress the lead Ganger; Jeremiah knew differently.

A sneer curled the Ganger’s lip as he reached out, grasped the Wannabe’s wrist, and lifted him clear off his feet. Without effort, he swung the helpless body towards the streetlamp. Jeremiah almost heard the boy’s spine crack against the metal post. He didn’t wait to see more, but took to his heels. The yells and screams of the Wannabes, as the rest of the Gangers attacked, followed him down the alley.